Department of Health and Social Care

Menopause: Employment

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle: To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to inform and educate employers and occupational health professionals of the specific workplace adaptations that women experiencing menopause symptoms may require, and what assessment they have made of working conditions for frontline health workers experiencing menopause symptoms.

Lord Markham: As set out in the Government’s Women’s Health Strategy, improving care and support for women experiencing menopause symptoms is a priority for the Government. Helen Tomlinson has been appointed as the Government’s first Menopause Employment Champion and is working with employers to increase understanding of menopause in the workplace and support for women. In October 2023 Helen published a report, No Time to Step Back, which provides guidance to help recruit, support and retain women experiencing the menopause and stop women considering giving up their employment.The Government has also launched a new online only space for guidance on the Help to Grow website, providing businesses, large and small, with the resources they need to help educate their organisation and workers about the menopause.In the 2023 Autumn Statement, the Government published the response to the Occupational Health: Working Better consultation and set out plans to imminently set up an expert group to support the development of a voluntary minimum framework for quality occupational health provision. The voluntary framework will take account of existing initiatives that support those with health conditions and disabilities in the workplace and aims to set out the minimum level of quality occupational health provision that employers can adopt to help employees return to work from sickness absence, and prevent health-related job loss.The Government also announced that it will identify longer-term options to build multidisciplinary workforce capability in work and health, building on existing work with the sector and exploring opportunities for businesses and providers to improve support for their employees. The Occupational Health Workforce Expansion Funding Scheme launched in July 2023 funds doctors and nurses to undertake occupational health training courses and qualifications with 99 Doctors and Nurses funded as part of the first round of applications.In terms of frontline health workers, a key focus of the NHS England National Menopause Care Improvement Programme is the development of a retention programme for the National Health Service workforce, which is looking at how best to support menopausal staff and line managers in NHS settings. In November 2022, NHS England launched Supporting our NHS people through menopause, a guidance document developed for NHS line managers and colleagues. They have launched two e-learning packages, for general guidance and occupational health colleagues, and are developing one for human resources and line managers. A health and wellbeing app, Shiny Mind, is available to the nursing workforce, and launched a menopause specific section in November 2023.

Infant Foods: Cost of Living

Baroness Goudie: To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve access to infant formula forfamilies who need it but are finding that rising costs are making it unaffordable.

Lord Markham: We are committed to promoting a healthy diet for children and providing support to families who need it the most through our Healthy Start scheme, which can be used towards the cost of infant formula. In April 2021, the value of Healthy Start rose from £3.10 to £4.25 per week, providing additional support to pregnant women and families on lower incomes to make healthy food choices. Children aged under one year old receive £8.50 in total per week, a rise from £6.20 a week.Infant formula legislation under the Retained Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/127 sets robust nutritional and compositional standards to ensure that all infant formulas, including cheaper options, provide all the nutrients a healthy baby needs.The Government launched the Household Support Fund in 2021 which was distributed by councils in England to directly help vulnerable households meet daily needs such as food, clothing, and utilities. The Government announced an extension of the fund to March 2024, which means since 2021 the fund has made £2.5 billion available to families most in need of support.

Ministry of Justice

Hate Crime: Alternatives to Prison

Lord Laming: To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that non-custodial sentences command public and judicial confidence by ensuring that, when offenders undertake such interventions, they are demanding, well organised, purposeful, and with the clear intention of reducing recidivism.

Lord Bellamy: The Government is committed to the effective delivery of non-custodial sentences, and it is important that both judges and the public have confidence in the delivery of these sentences. Courts have the power to impose a range of requirements to sentences served in the community. All community orders must have a compulsory punitive element to ensure that offenders are punished for their crime, and to deter further reoffending. For example, Unpaid Work (UPW) ensures offenders are making visible reparations for their crimes, such as cleaning graffiti. We have invested up to £93m in Community Payback over a three-year period to boost delivery of UPW hours. We have also relaunched the UPW nominations website on GOV.UK to make it easier and more accessible for the public to have a say in how and where UPW hours should be used. Electronic monitoring is a well-established tool available to courts and probation staff to strengthen offender management in the community. We are increasing the number of defendants and offenders that can be tagged at any one time to 25,000 by March 2025. Community Sentence Treatment Requirements (CSTRs) can also be imposed as part of a community sentence for offenders with mental health, drug or alcohol issues, offering a robust alternative to custody which addresses the root causes of offending. We have recruited Health and Justice Partnership Coordinators across all probation regions to ensure strong links between probation and healthcare to support these requirements. Public confidence is maintained by ensuring our staff are equipped with the right tools so that they can make the most of their expertise and judgement. We have increased funding for the Probation Service by an additional £155m a year to recruit record levels of staff, so that we can bring down caseloads, and deliver better and more consistent supervision of offenders in the community. We recognise the importance of ensuring the public is properly informed about sentencing as a whole and that the public has access to a range of information to enable this. We are also building and maintaining the confidence of the judiciary by improving arrangements to increase understanding and transparency in probation delivery at national, regional and local levels.

Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

Insulation: Housing

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth: To ask His Majesty's Government how many householdsthey aim to help with home insulation measures in the next 12 months; and what budget is available to support this.

Lord Callanan: While the Department does not hold precise estimates of how many households will be treated in next twelve months, we estimate around 450,000 will be supported via the Energy Company Obligation Scheme from April 2022 to March 2026 with the scheme funding approx. £1 billion per calendar year. The Government also estimate over 300,000 homes will be supported via the Great British Insulation Scheme from April 2022 to March 2026 with £1 billion funding available across that period.

Housing: Insulation

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth: To ask His Majesty's Government how many householdsthey have helped with home insulation measures in the last 12 months.

Lord Callanan: From 1 December 2022 to 30 November 2023 (latest available data), around 97,100 insulation measures were installed in domestic properties under the following schemes: Energy Company Obligation, Great British Insulation Scheme, Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, Green Homes Local Authority Delivery and Home Upgrade Grant. Under these schemes, some households may have had more than one type of insulation measure installed. Statistics for each of these schemes are published on the gov.uk website.